Happy Halloween, everyone! Welcome to spooky season at the cinemas! This is certainly a fun time of the year, especially for fans of horror. But it’s also still among the quieter months at the box office, historically speaking. After the huge summer movie season, August through October are traditionally a bit softer, before we get into the holiday movie season in November and December. And although this October has a very deep roster of movies hitting theaters, I’m having a hard time seeing anything that’s poised for a massive breakout, so it looks like things will stay on par with history.
Granted, looking back at September, I was completely surprised by the openings of “The Conjuring: Last Rites” ($84.0 million) and “Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle” ($70.6 million), so you never really know what could be in store at the box office. It is interesting to note that, despite those two huge openings, the month as a whole still managed to be fairly soft, finishing with $572.1 million domestically. For context, April through June of this year all hit at least $800 million, while July soared with $1.1 billion, and even the quieter August hit $678 million. It was still ahead of January through February, but not by a huge margin, and was slightly behind last September’s $592 million. The likely cause of this? Well, both “Last Rites” and “Infinity Castle” wound up being extremely frontloaded. Both still wound up above $100 million domestically through September, with “Last Rites” winning overall with $162.7 million, but third place was “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale” with just $40.0 million total, so we had a strong top two, but a pretty weak bench below that. Nothing massively disappointing based on expectations, but no additional breakouts, either.
Which, moving back to October, is likely to end up as a similar story overall. As mentioned, I’m not seeing anything that is poised for a massive breakout, but there is a lot of titles on the schedule, and five weekends to cover, as we combine Halloween season with early awards season releases and a surprisingly healthy amount of re-releases. Read every word of this preview if you’d like, or skim through and see what catches your eye. Because there’s definitely a lot to talk about!
As always, release date information for this post is courtesy of the-numbers.com and boxofficepro.com. The movies listed are the ones currently scheduled for a wide release in the United States and Canada and are always subject to change.
October 3 – 5
 |
| "Taylor Swift: The Official Release Party of a Showgirl" |
The opening weekend of October was a busy one for me personally and thus I wasn’t able to get this post out prior to the weekend. That means this weekend will be a review of what hit theaters this past weekend before we then preview the remaining weekends. In which case, our first thing to talk about is a bit awkward because it was a limited-time theatrical engagement that is already concluded and that was Taylor Swift: The Official Release Party of a Showgirl. As I’m sure you were aware of if you opened any sort of social media app over the weekend, Taylor Swift released her new album “The Life of a Showgirl,” her 12th studio album, on October 3. Given that it’s Taylor Swift, she broke all sorts of streaming records, despite somewhat mixed reaction to the album itself. But on top of that, she also put out this album release party in theaters where fans could go listen to the album with fellow fans in the theater, see the premier of Taylor’s music video for the lead-off single, “The Fate of Ophelia,” and get some behind the scenes footage from the making of the album and the music video. That easily won the weekend with $34.1 million. That’s about a third as much as her “Eras Tour” concert opened to domestically ($93.2 million), but given that this was an album release party as opposed to a concert movie, this was still rather impressive, especially considering fans could listen to the album on their own without purchasing this ticket and are now able to watch the music video for free on YouTube. If you missed the even, it’s now over. But the album is available to be listened to, which I’m sure you’ve done already.
In regards to new movies that hit wide release, there’s four of them that came out and they’re still in theaters if you want to catch up. The movie that hit the widest release was The Smashing Machine, which opened in 3,345 theaters. This stars Dwayne Johnson in a rare dramatic role, playing Mark Kerr, a former wrestler and mixed martial artist who was a two-time UFC heavyweight champion. The story of his fighting career was told in a 2002 HBO documentary that’s also titled “The Smashing Machine” and now it’s been adapted into a dramatized movie by Benny Safdie. Benny and his brother Josh Safdie have directed movies such as “Good Time” and “Uncut Gems” together, but this year they’re both on solo adventures and they’ve both chosen sports movies to tell. Benny has this movie about Mark Kerr, while Josh later has a ping-pong/table tennis movie titled “Marty Supreme” coming out around Christmas that stars Timothée Chalamet. In this Safdie vs. Safdie event this year, Benny got the head start, with “The Smashing Machine” getting solid reviews out of the festivals and initial awards buzz for Dwayne Johnson, but audience interest was not there this weekend. Despite the wide release and Dwayne Johnson in the lead, it opened to just $6.0 million, which wound up even lower than its initially projected $10-15 million.
Kicking off the horror season for Halloween were two lower-budgeted horror films this weekend. The first of those two was the movie Good Boy, which debuted in 1,650 theaters this weekend. On the one hand, this is a traditional supernatural horror film following a haunted house. But on the other hand, this is fairly unique in that it follows the vantage point of the dog and has gained a decent amount of traction and online interest because of that, especially after the movie’s premier at the South by Southwest movie festival back in March. People have so far praised the unique concept, citing the dog’s excellent performance in reacting how a dog would react in this scenario, while also pointing to the movie having a decent amount of actual scares. The movie is directed by Ben Leonberg in his feature-length directorial debut, who has stated in interviews that the movie was shot over the course of three years, using his own dog as the lead of the film. A bold and ambitious project for sure that currently holds a 91 percent on Rotten Tomatoes through 118 reviews. Even though it only opened to $2.3 million, which was about what was expected, it’s the type of movie that seems like it will remain in conversations among horror fans for quite some time. It will also be premiering on Shudder before too long as it was an IFC Entertainment and Shudder production.
The other horror film of the weekend perhaps had slightly less buzz than it’s dog-led competitor, but still premiered in 1,038 theaters and will provide more options for horror fans and that is Bone Lake. The movie is about a couple who goes on a romantic getaway to the secluded Bone Lake, only to learn that they are forced to share their getaway house with another mysterious couple, which of course never leads to anything good, especially when you’re in a horror movie. Likely not a happy vacation with these four humans. With this more traditional premise, it’s probably not poised to remain as buzzy of a film and only opened to $830,471, but it’s also a horror film that debuted at a film festival, this one having it’s premier at Fantastic Fest in September 2024. And it’s also had positive reaction so far, with an 82 percent Rotten Tomatoes score through 77 reviews counted, which should lead to a fun start for horror fans this month.
The final new release of the weekend was also a smaller release that’s had a decent amount of buzz, although for different reasons. And that’s the Ronan Day-Lewis directed movie Anemone. If that last name sounds familiar it’s because he’s the son of Daniel Day-Lewis, a three-time Academy Award winning actor for “My Left Foot,” “There Will Be Blood,” and “Lincoln.” Daniel Day-Lewis retired from acting after the 2017 movie “Phantom Thread,” which earned him his sixth Oscar nomination. However, despite that announcement, he has decided to come out of retirement to star in his son’s movie. And that’s what’s given this movie a good amount of buzz. It’s about a man heading out into the woods to connect with his estranged brother and is described as a psychological drama. The movie itself has had a mixed reaction, currently with a 54 percent Rotten Tomatoes score. And it only opened to $681,655 in 865 theaters. But the curiosity of seeing Daniel Day-Lewis one more time will certainly get some cinephiles out to see it.
That’s it for new releases. But quickly on the re-release front, Disney re-released Avatar: The Way of Water back into 2,140 theaters as a means to help promote and build excitement for the third movie, “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” which releases in December. It made the movie an additional $3.2 million and also had a sneak preview of “Avatar: Fire and Ash” for people who showed. In celebration of Halloween season, Universal re-released the 1995 film Casper into 1,100 theaters, earning $802,365, while GKIDS released a 4K restoration of the 1997 anime Perfect Blue into 471 theaters, earning $709,152. So with these three re-releases and Taylor Swift’s album release party, that made for an impressive eight new options for theater goers this past weekend.
October 10 – 12
 |
| Disney's "Tron: Ares" |
The Taylor Swift album released party was as a one-weekend only event, so that opens the door for something new to take the top spot in this second weekend and that movie will be Disney’s Tron: Ares. It’s been a bit of a complicated legacy for the Tron franchise. “Tron” was released in 1982 and was not a success, but later became a cult classic. After 28 years, in 2010, it finally got a sequel in “Tron: Legacy,” which was also met with mixed reaction and wasn’t a failure, but also wasn’t the bit hit that Disney was hoping for. But yet it has also developed a bit of a cult following in the now 15 years since its release, so now we’re here again with a third film in “Tron: Ares,” which stars Jared Leto as a sophisticated program called Ares that flips the script on the franchise by bringing the digital world of Tron out into the real world, as opposed to the first two movies where characters from the human world get sucked into the digital world. “Tron: Legacy” in 2010 opened to $44.0 million, which is about where “Tron: Ares” is also projected to hit as Box Office Pro has it projected in the $40-50 million range. Although 15 years of ticket price inflation would adjust to about $63.1 million, so that would be the actual benchmark for this new movie to hit to actually match its predecessor. The movie is directed by Joachim Rønning (“Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales,” “Maleficent: Mistress of Evil”) and has the Oscar-winning duo of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (aka Nine Inch Nails) taking over the scoring duties from the retired Daft Punk.
The other major wide release of the weekend will see Paramount release the crime comedy Roofman into 3,362 theaters. This won’t be any competition for the top spot, but it will provide an alternate choice as counter-programming to the big Disney movie. This is a movie that tells the story of Jeffrey Manchester who, in the late 1990s, began a crime spree where he would break into buildings, mostly McDonald’s, by drilling, hacking, or sawing through the roof. Thus he became known as the “Rooftop Robber” or “Roofman.” He was captured and arrested in May 2000, escaped in June 2004, spent some time secretly living in a Toys “R” Us, and was recaptured in January 2005, where he was sentenced to 40 years in prison. He attempted to escape a couple of more times, but was not successful. In telling this story, the movie is aiming for a comedic angle with how silly and goofy this guy’s story is, and has Channing Tatum in the lead playing Jeffrey Manchester, with Kirsten Dunst, Lakeith Stanfield, Juno Temple, and Peter Dinklage in various supporting roles. The movie actually premiered in September at the Toronto International Film Festival to decent reaction. It currently holds an 83 percent on Rotten Tomatoes through 52 reviews, and is expected to open in the $7-10 million range, thus looking like it might replicate “The Smashing Machine,” which again opened to just $6 million.
Playing in a more moderate 1,720 theaters will be the inspirational film Soul on Fire. This comes from director Sean McNamara, whose relevant films in this context are “Reagan” from last year as well as the likes of “Soul Surfer” from 2011 and “The Miracle Season” from 2018. He also has quite the wild list of other movies on his resumé. I won’t go down that rabbit hole, but check it out, if you want. Point being, though, when he has his “inspirational film hat” on, there’s often a specific target audience of people who he’s able to connect with. The movie itself is produced by Affirm Films, a subsidiary of Sony Pictures, who has released a whole host of inspirational and faith-based films such as “War Room,” “Miracles from Heaven” and “The Star,” along with the aforementioned “Soul Surfer.” The movie tells the story of John O’Leary, a young man whose literal body was caught on fire. After miraculously surviving, he spent his life afterwards helping others catch their “soul on fire” as he’s learned what it means to truly live rather than just survive. As the he says in the trailer, “The most powerful weapon on Earth is the human soul on fire.” The movie has a PG rating, so those searching for an inspirational film this weekend will have that as an option.
The final official wide release is is the movie musical Kiss of the Spider Woman arriving in 1,330 theaters. The movie is based on the stage production that premiered in 1992 that was done by the songwriting team of John Kander and Fred Ebb, who have also done productions such as “Chicago” and “Cabaret.” The stage musical was initially based on a 1976 novel and has now been adapted into a movie by Bill Condon. The story here centers around a gay window dresser, Molina, who is serving a prison sentence for allegedly corrupting a minor. He escapes the horrors of reality in prison by living in a fantasy world that are mostly centered around movies, specifically an actress, Aurora, who he has an obsession with. He loves her in all roles, but her role as the spider woman, who kills people with a kiss, is one that scares him. One day, another man, Valentin, a Marxist revolutionary, gets brought into his cell. The two form an unlikely bond that then alters the course of where the story goes. The movie apparently differs from the stage production in that it cuts almost every song set in the prison, while only keeping the songs from the fantasies. The movie premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year and has had the performances from Jennifer Lopez (Aurora), Diego Luna (Valentin), and Tonatiuh (Molina) nearly unanimously praised, but the movie itself has been met with slightly mixed response, although it currently still has a decent 76 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes from 78 critics. It seems like it’s headed for a more muted run in theaters, without huge awareness and mixed reviews, but it’s still likely to pique the curiosity of at least some people.
That’s all for this weekend in regards to the wide releases, but quickly on the limited and re-release front, Luca Guadagnino’s latest film After the Hunt is poised to debut in a few theaters before a scheduled expansion. Guadagnino is known for the likes of “Challengers” and “Call Me By Your Name,” and definitely has his fans due to those movies. This one is about a college professor who finds herself at a professional crossroads when a student makes an accusation about one of her colleagues, which then threatens her own dark secrets to come out. The movie stars Julia Roberts and Andrew Garfield and has Guadagnino playing in his typical risky playing field with the subject matter, but reaction has not been great so far after its festival release in September, which doesn’t bode well for it’s wide release.
Another limited release that is making quite a bit of noise is Kathryn Bigelow’s A House of Dynamite, an apocalyptic political thriller whose plot follows the U.S. government navigating an official response following a nuclear missile being launched by an unidentified enemy. Bigelow is well known for these intense political thrillers as she’s also released movies such as “The Hurt Locker,” “Zero Dark Thirty,” and “Detroit.” If it’s strong, positive reaction from the likes of the Venice and New York film festivals continues throughout awards season, Bigelow could see her name back in the awards race after “The Hurt Locker” won best picture in 2010 and “Zero Dark Thirty” was nominated for best picture in 2013. How well the movie does in theaters, we might not ever know. It’s a Netflix release and they’re releasing it in “select theaters” this weekend before it’s Netflix release on October 24. And Netflix rarely reports numbers, so if you want to see it in a theater, check your local listings to see if it has arrived.
Finally the 2000 Japanese film Battle Royale, which many see as a strong inspiration for “The Hunger Games,” as it is a movie where the government forces kids to fight each other in a yearly “game” called Battle Royale. It’s being released in theaters in honor of its 25th anniversary, with Lionsgate teaming up with Iconic Events to do so, on October 12, 13, and 15. My guess is it might be similar to “Perfect Blue,” which again was released in 471 theaters, earning $709,152.
October 17 – 19
 |
| Universal's "Black Phone 2" |
Another very busy weekend in terms of the quantity of releases. In sorting through it all, the one movie that stands above the rest is Black Phone 2, which is also positioned as the biggest horror movie of the month for the Halloween season, which is certain to give it a boost. This is a follow-up to the 2022 movie “The Black Phone,” which was a surprise hit that summer, opening to $23.6 million, while holding quite well to make $90.1 million total domestically and $161.4 million worldwide, on a budget of $18 million. The movie was a horror film that felt more like a crime thriller as it was about two kids who got abducted by a serial killer known as “the Grabber.” The mystery of the movie surrounded the main kid having psychic intuitions, as well as a disconnected phone that rang anyways. Without spoiling that movie too much, if you watched it and wondered how they can manage a sequel, let’s just say that this sequel appears to dive more into the supernatural by taking the Freddy Krueger approach. Is the Grabber actually back and haunting the same kids or is there more to the mystery that the movie doesn’t yet want to reveal? The movie has Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw return as the two kids who got kidnapped in the first movie, along with Ethan Hawke as the Grabber. In regards to box office, the movie is expected to open in a similar range as the first movie. Comparing this to the “Smile” franchise, “Smile” opened to $22.6 million in 2022, which was followed by “Smile 2” opening to $23.0 million in 2024. Although despite the nearly identical openings, “Smile 2” wound up being more frontloaded, as it finished with $69.0 million domestically, compared to the first movie’s $105.9 million. It seems like “The Black Phone” franchise could follow a similar course.
Opening in an estimated 2,700 theaters will be Bleeker Street releasing the comedy Good Fortune. This is a movie that was written and directed by comedian Aziz Ansari, who is also one of the lead stars of the movie. It stars Keanu Reeves as a “budget guardian angel” named Gabriel who usually only works saving people from texting and driving, who sets out to help a man who is down on his luck (Ansari) by making him switch places with a wealthy business man, played by recent Emmy winner Seth Rogen. Despite the good intentions of teaching a positive lesson, the experiment fails as results in Gabriel being “fired” as an angel and forced to live on Earth among the humans. The popularity of Keanu Reeves from the John Wick movies should give this a healthy boost, along with Seth Rogen’s presence. And while the movie isn’t an awards film, it got a head start on its word of mouth by releasing during the Toronto International Film Festival in September. And so far the reaction has seemed generally positive. So all of this is positive news for the movie. The biggest struggle is that comedies in general haven’t done super well in theaters in the last many years. Thus the projected $10-15 million range does seem like the proper range. How general audiences react to the movie might determine if the movie goes slightly above that range or falls a bit below.
Next up is the latest release from Angel Studios, Truth & Treason. Recently we’ve been discussing Angel Studios nearly monthly. They’ve had two breakout hits in “Sound of Freedom” in 2023 and “The King of Kings” in April of this year. But outside those, they’re nearly monthly releases have almost all landed in the $2-5 million range for their openings. The high this year was “The Rodeo,” opening to $5.4 million, with “Rule Breakers” being the low with $1.5 million. Most recently, “The Senior” hit right in that realm with $2.6 million in September, so it’s an easy bet for “Truth & Treason” to follow suit. This month’s outing for them sends audiences back to World War II, which they did last year with “Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin.,” which followed the story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. “Truth & Treason” is a story that follows Helmuth Hübener, who as a 17-year-old living in Germany, opposed the Nazi regime and set out to distribute pamphlets to share the truth of what was going on in the war, of which the Nazis certainly didn’t like and had him arrested in February 1942. Last November, “Bonhoeffer” opened on the higher end of the $2-5 million range, opening a hair above $5 million with $5.04 million, so that could be an indicator that “Truth & Treason” could also perform similarly.
The final scheduled wide release of the weekend is one of those movies that I’m not 100 percent sure actually exists. Or, more realistically, not sold on it actually getting a super wide release or making much of an impact. But regardless, that movie is the animated film Pets on a Train, which is a French animated film that is actually titled “Falcon Express” over in France. It’s one of those instances where they decided to give it a different title here in America for some reason. But said title is fairly descriptive. It seems to be an animal-led parody of sorts of your classic Great Train Robbery premise. A group of animal bandits are in the midst of a routine swindle on a train, when they find themselves caught up in the middle of a much larger train heist. So it’s up to a raccoon named Falcon, hence the initial “Falcon Express” title, and a handful of other animals to save the rest of them on this high-speed runaway train. The movie has already been released in France back in July, as well as a large handful of other countries. The United States is actually one of the last countries for it be released in. The reaction seems positive for the intended target audience of young kids. But it’s success here will depend on whether or not parents are aware of its existence. It might be something that does better on streaming down the road. That said, there hasn’t really been a big family film in a while, nor is there one scheduled until “Zootopia 2” on Thanksgiving, so this might get a few people to show up because of that.
That’s it for the scheduled wide releases this weekend, but there is an outside chance that you might also see Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein in theaters near you this weekend. Again, check your local listings here because this is a Netflix release and they’re pretty stubborn with their stance that “they are not in the theater business,” but this is one that you’d think they’d make an exception for. I don’t need to tell you what “Frankenstein” is. The original Mary Shelley novel was written in 1818 and has been adapted way too many times to count in the 217 years since then. Why are we getting yet another version? Well, because Guillermo del Toro wanted to do his own version of it and that should be enough to get plenty of people excited for it. Had this been any other studio and not Netflix, given the Halloween season and the popularity of del Toro, this could’ve been the movie of the month. But instead, Netflix is again saying “select theaters” on October 17. And what that means, we might never know. Could be a few hundred. Could be 1,000+ in celebration of the season. Regardless, the streaming release is November 7. So if it doesn’t come to your local theater, you get a post Halloween celebration with Guillermo. The movie stars Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein and Jacob Elordi as his monster. It was received warmly by the festival crowds last month, but this does seem like one that general audiences have the potential to enjoy a bit more.
Quickly on the limited front, Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon hits a few theaters this weekend before its scheduled wide release on October 24. How wide, I’m not sure. But the movie stars Ethan Hawke as Lorenz Hart, the former creative partner of Richard Rodgers, and chronicles his struggles with alcoholism and mental health during the opening night of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma!” back in 1943. This is actually the first of two Richard Linklater movies opening in limited release this month, the second being Nouvelle Vague on Halloween, a movie Linklater made in French about the filming of Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 film “Breathless,” which was one of the first feature films of the Nouvelle Vague era of French cinema. While “Blue Moon” is Sony Pictures Classics and thus has the actual opportunity to expand wide, “Nouvelle Vague” is another Netflix release. So they’ll do some sort of mysterious, likely small theatrical run before putting it on Neflix on November 14.
Two more quick releases on the limited front, Edward Berger’s next film Ballad of a Small Player will begin its run. This stars Colin Farrell and Tilda Swinton in a movie about a gambler who is laying low on the casino floors after his past debts start to catch up with him, when a mysterious casino employee offers him a potential lifeline. Edward Berger is the director of “All Quiet on the Western Front” and “Conclave,” both of which were massive hits at the Oscars, so there was of course buzz for his next film because of that, but it was met with a bit more resistance, with an early 56 percent Rotten Tomatoes score. So that might hurt its chances. It’s also a Netflix release and will be streaming on October 29. The final limited release I’ll mention is It Was Just an Accident, which won the Palm d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in May and is France’s official selection for best international feature at the upcoming Academy Awards. The movie is actually a co-production between Iran, France, and Luxembourg as it explores the political repression in Iran. Given the awards it’s already received and France selecting it over “Novelle Vague,” this is one to likely stick around, especially considering its subject matter and current 97 percent Rotten Tomatoes score.
And finally, a trio of re-releases will also be available. As a part of Studio Ghibli Fest 2025, Spirited Away will release on October 18 and be available until October 22. In honor of its 40th anniversary, The Last Dragon will be released in at least 500 theaters on October 19, 20, and 22, as well as a special event planned with the cast on October 25 at Regal Times Square in New York City. Fellow 1985 film St. Elmo’s Fire will also celebrating its 40th anniversary in theaters this weekend with a newly restored 4K version of the movie being released, beginning on October 17.
October 24 – 26
 |
| 20th Century Studios' "Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere" |
We’re coming in on the home stretch for October, but we’ve got another four wide releases to talk about again in the weekend prior to Halloween and we start with the latest musical biopic, Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, which of course dives into the life and career of Bruce Springsteen. The movie stars Jeremy Allen White as Springsteen, with Jeremy Strong playing his manager and record producer, Paul Walter Hauser playing his recording engineer, and Stephen Graham playing his father. What might separate this movie from the long list of musical biopics that have come before it is that, instead of focusing on the entire career of the artist, while shoving as many songs in as possible, this movie appears to be focusing specifically on the making of Springsteen’s 1982 album “Nebraska,” while also trying to reconcile the pressures of success with the ghosts of his past. So it appears to be a little more concise in its execution. So far it’s received generally favorable reaction following its festival run, with Springsteen fans seeming to be on board. It’s likely not poised to be as massive of a hit as the likes of “Elvis” or “Bohemian Rhapsody,” but last year’s Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown” could be a point of comparison. That movie opened around Christmas to $11.7 million and held well to finish with just over $75 million domestically.
Competing with Springsteen this weekend will be the romantic drama Regretting You, which is the latest movie adaptation of a Colleen Hoover novel. Last year, the movie “It Ends With Us” broke out in a huge way with an opening just over $50 million and a final domestic total of $148.5 million. Add in another $200 million internationally and its final worldwide total was $349.7 million. Naturally that makes Colleen Hoover a hot name and studios are going to want to cash in on her other work, even though “It Ends With Us” also came with a firestorm of controversy that led to an intense legal between director Justin Baldoni and lead star Blake Lively. Hoping to avoid all of the latter, of course, “Regretting You.” The movie centers around a young mother and her relationship with her teenage daughter as they cope with the recent death of their husband and father. The trailer suggests new romantic relationships intertwined in the story as they’re trying to navigate the grief that comes with loss, while trying to stay close as a mother and daughter. The cast is a collection of Allison William, Mckenna Grace, Dave Franco, Mason Thames, Willa Fitzgerald, and Scott Fitzgerald. Box Office Pro is currently projecting both this movie and the Springsteen biopic to open in the $15-25 million range. They’ll both also be competing with the second weekend of “Black Phone 2,” so it should be an interesting race to see what comes out on top.
Likely coming in below that trio of films is the latest anime movie Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc. Last month “Demon Slayer” showed what the potential of anime is as “Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle” opened to $70.6 million. Could “Chainsaw Man” become the next “Demon Slayer”? Well, likely not. At least not now, but “Chainsaw Man” as a manga series follows the story of an impoverished teenager who makes a contract that fuses his body with that of Pochita, the dog-like Chainsaw Devil, granting him the ability to transform parts of his body into chainsaws. The manga was initially published in 2018. The manga was adapted into an anime, which so far has one season with 12 episodes. “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc” is a movie that is a direct sequel to the first season. The film was released in Japan in September, as well as a handful of other countries, and has so far earned $44.4 million internationally, although it has plenty of countries still to go. It’s projected to open to around $7-10 million here domestically.
Last on the list for officially scheduled wide releases is Eli Roth Presents: Dream Eater, which his the second movie from this year to be acquired by Eli Roth’s new independent studio The Horror Section, which is dedicated to making and distributing unrated “no-holds-barred” horror films, as their website describes. Movie No. 1 was “Jimmy and Stiggs” back in August, a splatter-fest film from writer/director Joe Begos, which played in 626 theaters, but made just $78,488 total in those theaters on opening weekend, and was instantly dropped from just about all of them. It played in 10 theaters in its second weekend, and one theater in its third and final weekend, finishing with $111,685 total domestically. So that’s what we’re looking at with “Dream Eater” as well, which is written and directed by the trio of Jay Drakulic, Mallory Drumm, and Alex Lee Williams, while also starring all three of them in various roles. The premise is that of a found footage horror film where a documentary filmmaker heads to a remote cabin in the mountains with her boyfriend to document his violent parasomnia. As the only new horror release this weekend, that’s scheduled as a wide release that is, this might spark a bit of interest from some, although whether or not the movie itself lasts in theaters all the way until Halloween might depend on it making a bit more than just $78,000 from however many theaters it winds up in.
Currently the schedule just has those four movies listed as wide release, but like I mentioned the previous week with Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein,” there could be another one this weekend and that is Chris Stuckmann’s new horror film Shelby Oaks. I might have a little bit of a bias in following this one, but Chris Stuckmann is a YouTube critic that I’ve personally been following for many years. His desire this whole time has been to be more than just a critic, though. He’s wanted to actually make films. And through a long series of events, he was able to get this “Shelby Oaks” movie made. Horror expert Mike Flanagan jumped on board to help with the project, with NEON picking it up for distribution. The movie follows a woman’s search for her long-lost sister as she realizes that an imaginary demon from their childhood might actually be real. While it’s officially scheduled for a limited release on the calendar, the initial trailer current has 7.8 million views, with Trailer #2 having 2.7 million. So there’s clearly an interest for this, which makes me feel like this could be more than just a limited release. It seems like it could be a moderate release. Or maybe it opens smaller this weekend and expands on Halloween. I’m not sure. But we’ll see what happens with this one.
The most notable limited release this weekend will be the latest film from director Yorgos Lanthimos, Bugonia. Yorgos is notable for movies like “The Lobster,” “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” and “Dogtooth.” His recent films include “Poor Things” and “Kinds of Kindness,” the former of which did very well during awards season. His style is very off-kilter and unconventional, an acquired taste if you will. But those who vibe with him, really vibe with him, if you know what I mean. And “Bugonia” seems like the perfect type of strange that fans of his will connect with. It’s about two conspiracy-obsessed young men who kidnap the high-powered CEO of a major company, convinced that she is an alien intent on destroying Earth. In fact, this is a remake of the 2003 South Korean film “Save the Green Planet!” Yorgos doesn’t often do remakes or adaptations, but this one definitely seems like it was right up his alley and he seems like he’s adding his own unique flavor to it in order to make it stand out from the original. The movie stars Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons, both of whom were in his last film “Kinds of Kindness.” For Emma Stone, this is her fourth straight Yorgos film she’s been in. So the two have quite the strong professional relationship going on. This deal earned Emma her second Oscar win, getting best actress for “Poor Things,” so it’s definitely a mutually beneficial deal. “Bugonia” is currently scheduled to expand wide on Halloween, although I’m wondering if it might be a more slow roll-out, but that’s just personal speculation.
Only one new re-release this weekend, although I’m wondering with it being Halloween if there might end up being a couple more that pop up, but currently it’s just ParaNorman on the schedule. Not a specific anniversary celebration as it was a 2012 release from Laika. But if the current new options are not appealing, or parents want a fun Halloween film to take the family to, “ParaNorman” will be there as an option.
October 31 – November 2
 |
| Briarcliff's "Stitch Head" |
Congratulations. You’ve made it to the fifth and final weekend of this month. Like I mentioned to start this off, there’s a deep roster of films on the schedule this month, with at least four new wide releases each weekend. Until now. Because Halloween falls on a Friday. And while the month of Halloween is often a fun one for movie fans, Halloween night is one where people are out partying or trick-or-treating, not going to the theaters. So whatever shakes out in the previous weekends will get to lay claim to the title on the final weekend of October as well. Flipping the script a bit from what I’ve done so far, the most successful new release might be the re-release of Back to the Future. No notes needed on that one. A beloved classic that most people are well aware of. I suppose the one note might be to make some of you feel old in saying that it’s back in theaters in celebration of its 40th anniversary as another 1985 film. Halloween with Marty and Doc? Seems like a good plan. Or a solid way to spend the Saturday after Halloween.
There are two smaller releases hitting. Both actually premier on Wednesday, October 29. And neither is big enough to even be on Box Office Pro’s long range forecast, even though they’ve now projected out to the first two weeks of November. But one of them is Halloween related and that is the animated movie Stitch Head. This is based on the beloved bestselling book series, says the poster, as it shows a Frankenstein-looking kid with a Dracula outfit and a handful of monsters in the background. The official premise says that Stitch Head, voiced by Asa Butterfield, is a small creature awoken by a Mad Professor in a castle to protect the professor’s other creations from the townspeople of Grubbers Nubbin. The initial book was released in 2011 and there’s now six of them, with the most recent one having been released in 2023. Much like “Pets on a Train” from earlier in the month, this is likely to be a smaller release that could draw attention from some families looking for something to see. It’s distributed by Briarcliff Entertainment, whose highest grossing movie, “Blacklight,” made $9.5 million total. In April, they released the animated movie “Sneaks,” which opened in 1,500 theaters to $530,786. That said, the trailer for this movie has 18 million views, so I could be underestimating it.
The second smaller release of the weekend is the political thriller Anniversary. This movie stars Diane Lane and Kyle Chandler as a husband and wife whose son, played by Dylan O’Brien, starts dating a girl who is involved with a new political movement that the description of the movie simply refers to as “The Change.” This seems like a normal, happy family, but everyone’s loyalties get tested as tensions simmer due to this new development with the son’s new girlfriend. The cast of this is actually quite notable, with Zoey Deutch, Mckenna Grace, Daryl McCormack, Madeline Brewer, and Phoebe Dynevor being other supporting members, in addition to the other three I already mentioned. But the current buzz for the movie does not appear to be super notable. It seems like a movie that’s quietly left in late October by Lionsgate. Unless reviews and reactions wind up being strong, it might be a movie that stays quiet.
